Veteran actor-director Peter Fonda will serve as the president of the feature film jury at this year's Zurich Film Festival which will open on September 25 with the Swiss premiere of Uli Edel's Der Baader Meinhof Komplex in the presence of the director Edel, producer Bernd Eichinger, author Stefan Aust and actors Moritz Bleibtreu and Nadja Uhl.
Fonda will be joined in the seven-person jury by the Golden Leopard 2006 winner Andrea Staka (Das Fräulein), French editor Herve Schneid, and Israeli writer-director Dror Shaul, among others, to decide on the winners of the Golden Eye Awards for Best Debut Feature Film (first directorial work) and Best New Feature Film (second or third directorial work).
A three-person jury of Swiss documentary filmmaker Christian Frei, Asian producer Lorna Tee and cultural entrepreneur Walter Hügli will decide on the winner of the Best New Documentary Film award from eight films, including Slovakian Juraj Lehotsky's Blind Loves and Marina Zenovich's Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired.
The competition lineup of 16 international first, second or third feature films includes two world premieres: Swiss director Luki Frieden's A Thousand Oceans, with Shooting Star Joel Basman who will promote the film in Zurich as part of European Film Promotion's Touring Shooting Stars Film Programme, and US filmmaker William Sten Olsson's Boy Of Pigs.
The competition films are divided into three categories:
Competition Feature Films
A Thousand Oceans (Tausend Ozeane) by Luki Frieden, Switzerland/Luxembourg
Blood Appears (La Sangre Brota) by Pablo Fendrik, Argentina/France/Germany
Boogie by Radu Muntean, Romania
Dr. Aleman by Tom Schreiber, Germany
Dunya & Desie by Dana Nechushtan, Holland
Jerusalema by Ralph Ziman, South Africa
The Wackness by Jonathan Levine, US
The World Is Big And Salvation Lurks Around The Corner by Stephan Komandarev, Bulgaria/Germany/Hungary/Slovenia
Competition Debut Films
Ballast by Lance Hammer, US
Before The Fall (3 Dîas) by F. Javier Gutierrez, Spain
Boy of Pigs by William Sten Olsson, US
For A Moment, Freedom (Ein Augenblick, Freiheit) by Arash T. Riahi, Austria/France
Moscow, Belgium (Aanrijding in Moscou) by Christophe van Rompaey, Belgium
Sell Out! by Yeo Joon Han, Malaysia
The Man Who Loved Yngve (Mannen Som Elsket Yngve) by Stian Kristiansen, Norway
Tulpan by Sergey Dvortsevoy, Germany/Switzerland/Kazakhstan/Russia/Poland
Competition Documentary Films
Blind Loves (Slepe Lásky) by Juraj Lehotsky, Slovakia
Brides of Allah (Shahida) by Natalie Assouline, Israel
Mr. Rakowski by Jan Diederen, Holland
My Life Inside (Mi Vida Dentro) by Lucia Gajá, Mexico
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired by Marina Zenovich, USA
Suddenly, Last Winter (Improvisamente l' Inverno Scorso) by Gustav Hofer/Luca Ragazzi, Italy
The Art Star and The Sudanese Twins by Pietra Brettkelly, New Zealand
The Flower Bridge (Podul De Flori) by Thomas Ciulei, Romania
The sidebars at this year's festival include a focus on Israeli cinema with filmmakers Dror Zahavi (For My Father), Ayelet Menahemi (Noodle), Dror Shaul (Sweet Mud) and Renen Shorr, director of the Sam Spiegel Film School, coming to Zurich; a showcase of contemporary German language cinema in Panorama D, to be opened by Nicolette Krebitz's Das Herz Ist Ein Dunkler Wald; and a Swiss edition of the British onedotzero digital film festival.

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